PMI Missionaries
Seima & Naoko Aoyagi
Ministry Area: Japan
Responsibilities: Church planting, pasturing, teaching, mentoring
E-mail Address: aoyagifamily@gmail.com
Seima Aoyagi was born in Japan and grew up in a typical Buddhist family without any Christian influence. A Christian friend in high school led him to Christ in 1992. Being convinced of God's call for fulltime ministry through 7 years of college ministry experience with MTW team, Seima came to Covenant Seminary in 2004 and finished his MDiv in 2008. Having being ordained under PCA on October 2010, Seima is now called to go back to Japan to be involved in a church plant movement in Tokyo, one of the largest and fastest growing cities in the world with 35 million people, yet with one of the smallest Christian presence of 0.22%. The ministry Seima will join is a collaborative work of MTW and Redeemer Church in NY and is an attempt to start a movement that produces churches that are gospel-centered, grace-based, and missional in nature. Seima and his wife Naoko have four children, Senri, Towa, Satoki, and Akari.
Latest Report: (updated 1/2/2012)
Dear friends and supporters,
Merry Christmas from Tokyo, Japan!
I hope you have a wonderful Christmas and be ready to welcome a happy new year. In Japan, Christmas is not a holiday, but this year, God gave us weekly day offs for 24th and 25th. I saw that this opens up a lot of opportunity for us to share Gospel. Here I would like to share with you several Christmas opportunities that God gave us to share the gospel.
Dec 10 — Toyosu Project Christmas Gospel Concert
In our last newsletter, I asked to pray for our first outreach event for Toyosu, the area we are praying for the future church plant. It started with a sheer blessing that another church came to us proposing a joint Christmas concert opportunity for the area. We started to pray that this would be an event where we can get connected to the neighbors and share the gospel of Jesus Christ. Yet the event preparation did not go as we hoped. We did not know where we do the concert even at a month before. While we were inviting our non-Christians friends, we did not know who would have come. On the top of that, I had my grandfather passed away that morning and had to make 8 hours of train round trip, and did not have much time preparing for a preaching. Therefore, I was humbled to see more than 100 people came, and 80 of them were non-Christians from our contacts, and a lot of them said that it was their first preaching ever heard and was good. Alongside of on-going tsunami relief, we had not had much time to do outreach in the area, yet God had used our limited ability to build our network with non-Christians, and had made the relationships deep enough that people came that night even inviting their friends. Praise the Lord that God surely works in our weakness.
Dec 24 — All Watanoha Christmas Eve Concert
The area we are doing tsunami relief is Koganehama, which is a part of larger area called Watanoha. While there was no Christian presence in Watanoha before tsunami, now we have 6 Christian groups working in that area and all of them, including us, have a desire to start a church in a future. While you could easily ignore the other groups, or worse, fight each other, we as the leaders of the groups got together and decided that we want to cultivate such a love and respect and care among Christians working the area that even Christians in a same church would have hard time to create, so that the unity among Christian groups is so explicit to the outside that they come to us with a question, "who is your god that creates such a beautiful unity?"
The first collaborative event was All Watanoha Christmas concert on 24th, and we were praying that we could invite our local non-Christian friends and use the event to share Christ more openly. We had a nativity skit from a Christian school in Chiba, and organ and gospel mini concert.
And praise the Lord that we had more than 130 local non-Christians came and they all said that it was their first Christmas event ever attended in their life. I gave 15 min short preaching on that Jesus was called Emmanuel to show that God is with us, especially with those who are under suffering and sorrow. Please pray that the message I was able to give had sown seeds in their heart and would sprout when time comes.
Dec 25 — first Koganehama Worship service
The Christmas day was on Sunday, and we were able to have our first public, if not weekly, worship service in Koganehama. While majority of those who attended were Christian volunteers from Chiba, we were so glad to see 12 local non-Christians also came to the service. This really means that people's heart has become so open that they are not hesitant to come to a Christians worship service. It is God who is building his kingdom and I am so thrilled to see we are part of this.
Family Updates
Seima's Grandfather passed
My grandfather died on Dec 10 at his age 97. It was sad to see him go, but at the same time I was so thankful that I was able to meet him several times before his death. Throughout our seven years in US when we were not able to come back once, my grandfather kept telling me that how much he wanted to see me. It was a gift from God what our family were able to come back to Japan just 10 months before his death and enabled us to visit him several times. I wish I saw him becoming a Christian (he was a devoted Buddhist), but I remember how much he rejoiced with tears in his eyes when he heard that I became a pastor. I hope God miraculously had met him in his death bed, while I am happy to leave this all to the hands of our gracious God.
Among all of our extended relatives, we and Naoko's father were only Christians. We were glad to see all my maternal relatives on grandfather's funeral. Please pray for their salvation, and that God gives us chances and wisdom to share Christ.
Winter Break
Kids are enjoying Christmas though it is different from what we had in US. Their Japanese school had entered into a winter break since 20th till January 5th. We hope that this gives a time for our family to spend together. We are planning to go to Tohoku together on Dec30-Jan1 as a family, and do Mochi-making party with the local friends and have the New Year worship service on 1st.
Please Pray
…for us.
- That we as a family be united by the Spirit and be dependent on the Lord always.
- That God keep supporting our financial needs as we are facing a challenge due to recently weakned US dollars.
…for Tohoku.
- That the northern cities are rebuilt as soon as possible.
- That more people in the north find hope in our Lord Jesus.
…for Tokyo.
- That God raised more leaders in Grace City Church, bringing more people to the church.
- That God gave us broader and deeper connections to the non-Christians in Toyosu, and even starts weekly bible studies in the area. Pray that God gives us a discernment when to be silent, when to share, when to challenge
In His Grip,
Seima
Presbyterian Mission International
12330 Conway Road
St. Louis, Missouri 63141
Telephone: (314) 434-4044
Fax: (314) 434-4819
